


Like a Sinking Star

by Katharos



Category: Transformers - All Media Types
Genre: Pre-War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-24
Updated: 2014-05-24
Packaged: 2018-01-26 09:31:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,330
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1683497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katharos/pseuds/Katharos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written for the 2011 Transformers fix exchange. Pre-war, the Academy is a hotbed of political dissent, protests, and factions. Skyfire is a struggling grad student, desperately chasing grants with his partner Starscream.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like a Sinking Star

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Katarik](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Katarik/gifts).



Skyfire could think of several reasons why he might have been summoned to the Vice-Chancellors office. Most of them involved his partner.

None of them involved being introduced to Lord Councilor Highreach, member of the Academy's Board of Governors. Provider of a significant percentage of the Academy's funding money.

"I'm on an informal visit only," the Lord laughed, waving Skyfire's awkward attempts at formality from his place behind the Vice Chancellor's desk. "Just checking in on things - I was keen to meet with one of our newest bright young post-graduates and the Vice Chancellor directed me to you." A nod to the Vice Chancellor, who settled himself quietly at the side of the room. Lord Highreach smiled and folded his hands together. "I would be very interested in hearing about the work you're doing at the moment."

Skyfire drew in a deep ventilation – Primus, Starsceam would kill him if he messed up this chance – and plunged into the latest version of their long, beloved, much worked and reworked pitch.

Lord Highreach was polite, attentive, asked intelligent questions, and seemed genuinely interested in the proposed aims and itinerary of their expedition. Skyfire felt a little dizzy. This was their opportunity, their chance. Not unlooked for, searched desperately for, but here unexpectedly, a windfall of luck of the kind post-grads cluttering up the Academy’s halls only dreamed of –

And yet. Skyfire felt unease coil through his circuity, teasing flight or fight subroutines deep in his binary programming, making him tense even as he talked his way through the previous surveys that supported their projections.

There was just something about Highreach, something about the way he acted. Nothing quantifiable, nothing Skyfire could put his finger on but something. Familiar.

Starscream, Skyfire thought suddenly as Highreach settled back in his chair and favoured him with a paternal smile. He reminds me of Starscream. Starscream doing his weasley best to wheedle and charm Skyfire into helping with one of his schemes.

Primus. Skyfire felt his own smile grow weak. The urge to leap out the office window and fly very, very far away was almost overwhelming. But. Our expedition.

“I am continually amazed by some of the work that comes out of this Academy.” Highreach shook his head. In amazement, presumably. “I would be very interested in seeing the results of your work. There are some parallels I can see to work being developed in my own lab…” Highreach frowned, tapping the edge of the desk in studied thoughtfulness. “It’s a shame so much attention is being given lately to the laboratory sciences,” he mused. “Perhaps the natural sciences have been erroneously neglected.” He sighed. "Inevitable, I suppose. Old business mechs like me find it hard to bet on unverifiable results and uncertain returns." He held Skyfire's optics. Smiled. "But sometimes risks can be made worthwhile."

Energon treat and force stick, all in one neat package, but what did he want? Skyfire stalled his vocaliser to keep from blurting that question out, making a mumbly agreeing noise instead. He couldn’t help darting a glance at the Vice-Chancellor but that mech wasn’t even looking at him, and Skyfire felt a deep upswell of disappointed betrayal as he looked back at Highreach. He was alone, then. His wings felt frozen.

The Tower Lord, Academy Governor and sponsor twinkled at him fondly. The lowly, poor, post-grad student smiled back politely. The Vice-Chancellor said nothing.

I don’t like this play, Skyfire thought sadly. This isn’t the role I thought I was auditioning for.

“Now you don’t spend all of your time studying, surely. What do you do in your free time?”

“I edit a university newspaper,” Skyfire offered, testing.

“I’m sure the factions and protest groups keep you well supplied with material,” Highreach smiled. “Are you involved with any of them yourself?”

Oh. Of course.

“I’m a member of the Equal Sparks, sir.” Skyfire said. He touched the sigil attached to his shoulder demonstration – obvious that Highreach had known before he’d even stepped into the room.

But why? Skyfire though in frustration as Highreach led him into another round of light, polite conversation about his group’s aims and activities. There were dozens of politically active student and alumni groups on campus, some of them far more extreme than Equal Sparks. Although even Equal Sparks would be seen as dangerously controversial elsewhere on Cybertron, outside the traditional protection of the Academy… _Take no one’s word for truth, and no one’s word for master,_ the ancient Prime had declared in their Charter, when Primes still did such things, and the Academy had guarded that independence fiercely. Guarded it with a bottomless wellspring of innovations and wonders that propelled Cybertron through the stars. The campus was a seething mass of factions and counterfactions and political argument – last cycle a sit in against the war had clashed with a walk out for the war and the ringleaders were still missing lectures repairing that chandelier…

The Vice-Chancellor had smiled even as he handed out that punishment. Everyone knew he fought constantly with certain members of the Council who wanted to impose constraints on the whole wonderful mess.

Skyfire managed not to look at him this time.

Highreach finished an amusing anecdote from his own time as a student and smiled at Skyfire. “I’m afraid I’m going to have to end our meeting here. My assistants keep my schedule far too tight. I enjoyed our conversation Skyfire.”

“Thank you sir,” Skyfire said quietly. He waited.

Highreach leaned forward. "I want you to understand," he said earnestly. "If you ever come across anything - anything at all - that might give you cause for concern. Anything that makes you uneasy. You are more than welcome to contact me." He waved a hand vaguely. "Young bots can get... overexcited, in exciting times like these. Swept up in things. Sometimes an older, steadier processor can be.... necessary." He chuckled. "I'd even appreciate some interesting gossip. An old mech like me - it's nice to hear what you young bright sparks are up to." He smiled. "In return I would be very pleased to keep an eye on your career. Your's and your partner's. I think you could go far. Why, to the stars!" 

He paid no attention to the Vice-Chancellor still in the room.

"Do you understand, Skyfire?"

“Yes sir,” Skyfire said. “I understand.”

###

“Lord Highreach,” Starscream repeated dreamily, staring up at the ceiling. “Lord Funding-Pots. Lord Grant Schemes.”

“Lord not going to be happy when I don’t give him anything,” Skyfire sighed. He checked the readings on his bio-habitat and added a little more nitrate to the soil mix.

“Why not?” Starscream demanded. He flipped himself over on the berth so he could stare at Skyfire. “You don’t have to give him anything good. Just gossip and things he could get from anywhere.”

Skyfire stopped fussing with the plant, staring down at his hands. Primus, he wished it was a simpler time. Two joors ago. It had been a simple time two joors ago. “I would have to give him something," he said softly. "Too much.”

“What?” Starscream’s optics brightened. “Are you involved in something –“

“No! Primus, Starscream. No. I’d have to give him myself. A piece of myself I would never be able to get back.” Skyfire looked over at the berth. Starscream had gone back to studying the ceiling, mouthplates pursed in sulky line. You could see in his frame the half finished modifications for space travel, mods they’d both sunk ever spare credit and hope into for five vorns, ever since they’d formalized their partnership, a dare flung at the future.

Skyfire heard his voice sublimate into a plea. “Do you understand?”

Silence from the berth. After a moment Skyfire made himself turn back to the bio-habitat. Let him think, he told himself. That’s just how Starscream is, he has to work through everything. 

The plant had probably had all the fussing it could stand. Skyfire sighed and stood. The back of his wings itched. Maybe he should have another sonic shower. Or the backlog of unprocessed data in his inbox was nagging at him. There was that new report on the living conditions of factory commissioned mechs in Tyger Pax that he’d guiltily been meaning to read for two decacycles...

Starscream’s tone was thoughtful. “Maybe I could join Equal Sparks and then Highreach could suborn me…”

“I thought you were a member of the Galactic Front this week?”

Starscream flicked his wings dismissively, his optics still narrowed in thought. “Their leader was an idiot. No, it would take me too long to get into their inner circle – where you are already.”

“How many groups have you worked through now?” Skyfire asked, distracted, fascinated.

“Seventy-two percent. And don’t change the subject.”

“What will you do when you’ve gone through them all?”

“How should I know?” Starscream shoved himself off from the berth and stalked over to Skyfire, wings bristling. He stared broodily down at their biological specimen, brushing his fingers gently over one of its scarlet fonds. “Maybe some of the earlier ones will be less stupid and I’ll go round again.”

“You could always form your own?” Skyfire suggested.

Starscream glowered at him. “And not have the time to completely dominate the Natural Science field? I have three papers to write this week! Three! And two to peer review and I need to spend time in Lab 3, and there’s the Mentahalox Expedition Notes…”

“And your suitors will be around as soon as the news gets out.”

Starscream sniffed but didn’t deny it. Skyfire smiled. He didn’t doubt Starscream’s bitterness when the latest faction failed to live up to his expectations were very real – in fact, his news about the attempted bribery had probably derailed a good set of the Starscream Sulks. However, he also didn’t doubt that Starscream thoroughly enjoyed the preening attentions of the factions who flocked around to woo him to their cause. Indeed, a smile played around Starscream’s mouth at the reminder.

It faded. "I'd trade them all for one from the funding committee. It'd take a plasma grenade to clear out all the old fossils ahead of us in the Natural Science departments." A hard light came into his optics. It made him look almost ugly. "They're never going to give an expedition - a real expedition, deep space, independence - to two wet paint fresh graduates while the fossils are tearing each other to pieces for the remaining scraps - " 

“And would you be happy,” Skyfire asked quietly, “to be under Highreach’s thumb for the rest of our careers? To ask ‘how high’ when he says fly?”

Silence. “No,” Starscream said finally. He slanted a sideways glance his way. “But couldn’t you lead him on just a little bit…” Smiling, Skyfire shook his head.

Starscream huffed. “Fine. Just don’t blame me when we’re still sterilizing other people’s soil collection jars five vorns from now.”

"""""

 

Over the next few cycles Skyfire did his best to pretend nothing had happened. This wasn't, he told himself firmly, foolish denial. This was careful, thought out, reasoned denial. He wasn't going to let Highreach change him, so best pretend he'd never met the Lord. He deleted the two hopeful little messages as soon as he received them and told himself that was the end. The consequences would come when they would, and he'd deal with them then. 

Fortunately the universe conspired to provide him with plenty of distractions. The war in the Kukulin system had flared up again - mining rights - and students had to squirm their way through howling protests and counter-protests on the campus quads to get to class. The six Introduction to Xeno Planetary Science classes he'd agreed to teach all had their midterms due, he had his own papers to research and write, two hopeful grant applications came up that he and Starscream wrestled with deep into the night cycle...

A hand tapped his hip, making him jump. "Skyfire," Lightstep peered up at him worriedly. "Are you alright? We haven't seen you at the last three meetings."

"Lightstep!" Skyfire managed to smile down at him, juggling sliding cases of specimen samples in his arms. "I'm sorry, it's just been. Busy. I've had a lot to think about."

"It's alright, as long as you're fine. Although we do miss your minutes - Deepwell's notes are atrocious!" Skyfire chuckled along with him. Lightstep tilted his head at him. "Thinking? About the Tyger Pax report, by any chance."

Skyfire hesitated, then nodded. "I finally got a chance to read it," he said quietly. "Some of the claims in there are... horrific."

Lighstep nodded to himself, as if something had been confirmed. "Listen, Skyfire, we're having a meeting tonight. Just a few of us. Why don't you come along? I think you'd find it interesting."

Skyfire opened his mouth to make a polite refusal. Stopped. You weren't going to let Highreach change you, a little voice nagged in his processor. So why have you been avoiding them? "Lightstep, I'd love to." he said firmly.

""""

The meeting was at Lightstep's apartment instead of their usual borrowed seminar room. 

"Skyfire!" Lighstep beamed as he opened the door. "Now the gang's all here!"

"Am I late?" Skyfire asked in concern, stepping through the door. "I thought this was the time you said." He nodded politely to the four mechs already seated around Lightstep's ground table. He recognised them all as part of the group's inner circle - including Deepwell of the atrocious notes who waggled his fingers at Skyfire, grinning.

"No, no it's fine," Lightstep laughed, waving him in. "Rust wafer? They're good."

Skyfire accepted a rust wafer and sank down into his place at the table. He exchanged hellos as Lightstep bustled around checking doors and windows and - bizarrely - the com station and other nooks and crannies. 

"All clear!" he announced at last, joining them. 

It was as if someone had run an electric current through the room. Mechs sat up straighter. Optics shone brighter. Skyfire hastily put down his half eaten rust wafer, feeling off-balance. Group meetings were usually intense - the members were serious about their cause, it was one of the reasons he had chosen to join the group in the first place - but he'd never felt anything like this. 

"Skyfire." Lightstep leaned forward earnestly. "I want you to know that we understand how you feel." Nods from all around the table, mechs eyeing him with indulgent fondness. 

Skyfire resisted the urge to flare his wings defensively. "How I feel?"

"About the abuse of our reproduction system. Where poorer mechs are priced out and only the richest can afford to privately construct a new creation while meanwhile the wealthiest masters of industry engage in unregulated, unchallenged mass constructions of mechs destined to become a worker underclass in our society."

"Of course we all feel that way," Skyfire said cautiously. "It's in our manifesto." Quoted directly from the manifesto, in fact. Skyfire had poured through dozens of them, quizzed group leaders and members, sat in on meetings, determined to find and choose the right group. One he could believe in. Because he knew he was priveleged. He'd worked hard to get where he was, he'd done his vorns of service to pay off his creation debt. But he knew it was luck, chance, his creators' choices that had meant it was possible for his work to make that difference. 

And somewhere in the core of his spark he felt a deep knot of guilt because instead of a practical, immediately useful science - something with direct benefits for mechs - he had chosen instead to do what he loved and to chase the stars. 

"And how many," Lightstep's voice dropped to a rasping whisper, "of our manifesto goals have we achieved?

"None," Greenstreak said. A murmur echoed her from the other mechs. 

"None," Lightstep repeated. He sat back. "You have to ask," he went on, almost to himself, "What we thought we were doing. Petitions and protests! No more. Skyfire," he said, and Skyfire jumped, staring down at him in a strange kind of fear. "That's what I wanted to tell you. We all believe. We have to take real action."

"What kind of action?" Skyfire asked, half-desperately "A media campaign? Are you going to challenge the council?"

"The Council!" Lightstep snorted. "The council is a bunch of industry yes-mechs. No. The only way is to target the true criminals, the industries themselves. 

"Attack at the root," Greenstreak said. "They'll listen when their misery assembly lines are in flames."

Deepwell leaned forward eagerly. "We've even got contacts in the protoform industry who want to see change!"

Greenstreak, Skyfire remembered, was studying architecture. She'd taken a class on building demolition a few stellar-cycles ago.

"How could you think I-" wanted something like this? Skyfire shook his head. "This is wrong. This is - Lightstep I can't support this."

"You can't support us? Just look at you!" Lightstep swept his hand wide, as if he could encompass all that Skyfire was into a neat placard. "The exception that proves the rule! Your creators - eleven of them - bankrupted by commissioning you, you forced into vorns of indentured service to pay off their debt - are you going to stand their and argue that the system isn't fragged?!!"

"I agree that the system is broken," Skyfire said calmly - he hadn't known he could be so calm. Perhaps it was numbness instead. "But Lightstep - this isn't the way to fix it!" His voice cracked. 

"How else?" A sharp bitterness flashed in Lightstep's optics - how had he never seen that? "Nothing else has."

"And so you turn to terrorism."

Lightstep's mouth pulled sideways in a hard smile. "Is it terrorism when a mech smashes a fire alarm to clear a crowded theatre? Better a small terror, a small destruction now than a conflagration in a few vorns.."

Skyfire opened his mouth to argue. Stopped. No. "This isn't the debating society Lightstep," he said quietly. "This is real life. Real people. Murder."

He could see it so very clearly, the warping metal beams, the greedy flames roaring ever higher, the med-techs, the administration staff, the cleaners, killed by the first bombs and dieing slowly of the heat as systems failed. Fire licking at delicate new circuitry. 

He didn't think Lightstep could though. 

He shook his head, barely aware his wings were trembling. "I can't be part of this."

Lightstep's faceplates twisted in bewilderment, and growing fury. "I thought you were with us."

"You were wrong," Skyfire said quietly. Coldly. He felt so very cold. 

"Against us then."

"Yes."

"Well great," Greenstreak snapped, her optics flashing. "What are we going to do now? He's going to walk out there and turn us straight into the Enforcers!"

"Maybe he won't," Deepwell put in quickly. "Right Skyfire? You don't have to help us if you don't want to, I know it's difficult to get your processor around but this is the only way. Just keep quiet yeah? 

Skyfire tried to picture his friends in the Stockades. He felt sick. "I'll do what's right."

Lightstep had been watching all this in silence. "No," he said. "Greenstreak's right, Deepwell." He met Skyfire's gaze and his optics were hard. Decided. "We can't let you walk out of here."

"And how," Skyfire said quietly, sadly, "do you think you can stop me?"

He saw them all pause. He saw their optics widen, as they looked at him, as if seeing him again for the first time. Realise that they were looking up at him, that he was twice the size of the next tallest in the room, and more than three times the mass. That he was armoured for deep space, for the long, cold vorn long runs in a universe far from their sheltered Academy. 

And even knowing what they planned, even with his own spark breaking, it still hurt when they flinched as he rose to his feet. Skyfire hesitated for a moment, then unhooked his faction sigil and set it down on the table with a quiet clink. 

"Goodbye," he said quietly, and walked out the door. 

###

Lightstep's apartment, typically for a poor student, was buried several levels deep in one of Iacon's rougher wards. Skyfire found the towering artificial canyons far more claustrophobic than he had less than half a joor ago. He stopped almost as soon as he was out of Lightstep's apartment block, leaning against a convenient wall. He felt weary, spark weary, and his head was bowed as he went slowly over his memories of everything that had been said. He wished he could break orbit, circumnavigate the galaxy, come back to the Cybertron he thought he had been living one. Because surely that was a different planet to this one, where friends he thought he knew could...

"Skyfire!" A voice screamed, splitting the night, and Skyfire looked up, shocked, to see Starscream diving towards him, optics wide with terror - and saw as well several small metal objects falling slowly towards him.

Was the data packet ready? No, but good enough and he sent it, flagged with every alert he could think of and a few he made up as well even as he scrambled to get away from the building -

The world exploded. 

That aftershock flung him to the ground, bits of building peppering his plating. He heard Starscream cry out and his link to his partner's systems informed him his wing was bent. Starscream couldn't fly.

"Missed!" someone cried.

"No - Lightstep, he transmitted something before the blast!" Deepwell, how- oh, they'd forgotten to take him off the group's com circle, and Skyfire felt a protoform sob catch in his vocaliser as Lightstep snarled "Just - no - it'll be our word against his just get him-" And Skyfire leaped, firing his thruster, barreling into Starscream just as his partner sat up, swearing viciously and aiming a probably illegal weapon -

The second blast caught him across his back, his space-worthy armoured back, curled tightly about Starscream.

And then the aftershocks faded to be replaced by the high wail of sirens. 

###

They ended up collapsed together in one quiet corner, checked over by the medics and ordered to keep out of the way, ordered by the enforcers to stay put, until their statements had been taken. The firefighters had brought the blaze under control but fire light still licked across the grey shells of the residential districts, mixing with the strobing sirens. The prisoners - his friends - had been removed the scene already but it hadn't seemed to lessen the shouting. 

"Starscream," Skyfire asked, quietly, under the cover of all that noise. "Why were the Equal Sparks under the impression I was ready and eager to join their campaign of intimidation and violence?"

The Seeker in his arms stiffened. 

Skyfire let out a laugh - some one else might call it a sob - and pressed his forehelm against the top of Starscream's. "It's alright. I think. No, it is. I prefer the truth to illusion." He did. He just needed a little time to get used to the idea that it had been an illusion. 

Starscream wound sharp fingers into the cracks in Skyfire's hip plates, clinging. "I didn't think they'd try to kill you." His voice shook. "I didn't think you would be _stupid_ enough to practically _tell_ them you were going to turn them in -"

"Mastermind," Skyfire sighed. "Your pawns get away from you?"

Starscream grumbled but pressed against him anyway. He kept pinging Skyfire's autonomics for status updates. Skyfire let him. Even welcomed it a bit. He should be more angry at him, he thought - although being angry at Starscream for plotting was like being angry at space for being big. Futile and a little foolish. But he remembered the terror in Starscream's optics when he realised his plots had gone awry, and right now he needed his best friend, his partner, pressed up against him like this. 

"All that," Starscream grumbled faintly, "and you called the Enforcers."

"I had to do what was right," Skyfire said quietly. 

For once, Starscream didn't complain. 

Approaching footsteps made them both look up. The Vice Chancellor stared down at them, the distant flames glinting of his curves of his armour, a small smile on his face. Skyfire stiffened.

"Skyfire." The Vice-Chancellor dipped his head. "I wanted to apologise to you. You should have never been placed in the position." There was shame in those lowered optics and Skyfire felt something tense and wary relax at little, in him. He didn't think he'd ever be able to see the Vice Chancellor the way he once had but it was. Good. To see that shame. "It used to be..." He shook his head and sighed. "I suppose that's not important anymore. You should never have been put in that position but I am very, very impressed with the way you handled it." His smile grew. "And very proud. We have many intelligent, clever mechs in this Academy. But one's with the ability to make the right choices... yes." He nodded to them both, smile still tugging at his lip-plates. "I'll have to see what can be done for you two. 

Skyfire stiffened. "Sir," he said sharply, ignoring Starscream's frantic hisses, "I didn't do this for reward."

"Ease down Skyfire," the Vice-Chancellor said gently. "I know. And that's why we need more mechs like you to help protect this Academy. Have your grant proposal on my desk tomorrow morning."

The Vice Chancellor walked off, leaving the two of them staring at each other. 

Starscream began to grin. 

Skyfire rapped him on the helm. "No," he said firmly. "No, you don't get to gloat about this one." He couldn't stop a small, giddy smile from forming on his own faceplates though, nor the sudden brimming of hope - possibilities - plans, yes, true true plans at last - spilling from his own processor and spark. 

And surely, somewhere, in all that beauty and all that hope there could be found something, however small, that could give some of that same hope back to Cybertron.


End file.
